Sermon Text: Zephaniah 2:3, 3:11–13
Date: February 1, 2026
Event: The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

Zephaniah 2:3, 3:11–13 (EHV)

Seek the Lord, all you humble people of the earth who have carried out his commands. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. Maybe then you will be sheltered in the day of the Lord’s anger. …

3:11In that day you will no longer bear the shame of your rebellions against me. Then I will remove the proud boasters from among you, and you will never again be arrogant on my holy hill. 12But I will leave among you the people who are humble and weak. They will seek refuge in the name of the Lord. 13The Israelites who remain will no longer act unjustly. They will not lie, and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth. Instead, they will graze peacefully like sheep and lie down. No one will terrify them.

The Path of Humility Is Difficult

Looks can be deceiving. We’re probably all familiar with the trope in movies of someone who looks completely unqualified transitioning into someone qualified for whatever is going on. Usually, that takes place in a montage of clips, whether in a makeover or a training session. The gangly nerd wins the athletic event, the clueless space-cadet comes to save the day with academic prowess, or whatever expectations-subverting event the movie’s plot needs.

In our Gospel this morning, Jesus’ beatitudes (as they’ve come to be known) present these kinds of deceiving looks as well. The poor have the kingdom, the mourners are comforted, the gentle will own the earth, the persecuted will be the victors (see Matthew 5:1-12). But this is not a new concept or promise in Jesus’s sermon on the mount. These kinds of surprising contrasts had been part of God’s promises and blessings for a long, long time.

Our First Reading for this morning takes us to the prophet Zephaniah. If you don’t feel like you have a good mental shorthand of who Zephaniah was or what he did, that would make sense, because not only do we not typically spend a lot of time with his work in our cycle of readings for worship, we also know very little about Zephaniah in general.

Some of the things we can pin down pretty well: he was a prophet during the reign of King Josiah, one of the very few good, God-fearing kings in the history of God’s people. There’s a possibility that Zephaniah was a descendant of King Hezekiah, another one of the upstanding kings from a few generations prior, but that can’t be precisely nailed down.

Zephaniah’s call is pretty unenviable. He’s given a message of judgment coming on God’s people. The Southern Kingdom of Judah had become proud and felt invincible. God had rescued them from a siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians 100 or so years before, but that didn’t turn them back to God on the whole. In fact, after that, despite all logic, they seem to have gotten even bolder. Kings Hezekiah and Josiah brought some highlights and much-needed spiritual reforms, but most other kings and the people at large were often dedicated to false gods, if to any at all.

Zephaniah’s work is very much akin to Jeremiah’s: God sends him to Judah with a message of impending judgment. His preaching would not be popular or uplifting. It would not be long before God would send the nation of Babylon to carry Judah into exile. Much of Zephaniah’s message warns of that coming hardship and reminds God’s people why it would come. They had not humbled themselves before God and went their own way, and this brought God’s judgment on them.

Do you recognize yourself in the people of Judah’s approach to life? How often do we let our ego and hubris take control? How often are we driven by what we think is right and find ourselves dismissing anyone else’s opinion? How often do I let my feelings about what I think should be right or wrong override what the laws of our city, state, or nation say, or even more direly, what God says?

In those moments, we make our own desires and preferences into our gods, just like the Israelites did. Whether we publicly make our egos known or just silently and inwardly burn against others, we show our sinful, fallen nature so clearly. We view ourselves as better, smarter, or more important than other people. Or, again, even more important than God.

This is the way of the world. It’s the way the world thinks and operates. I think you would be hard-pressed to find too many people who were viewed as successful in the world’s eyes who could also be characterized as meek and humble. The world constantly reminds us that to get ahead, you have to be big, bold, and bowl over others in your path.

That’s what the world says. But what does God say? We heard Jesus in his sermon promise that the gentle would inherit the earth, that those who are merciful and bring peace would be blessed, and that even those who are “persecuted because of righteousness” hold on to their share of the kingdom of heaven. This is wildly out of line with the way the world pushes us to behave, but it’s also the behavior that God commended through Zephaniah: Seek the Lord, all you humble people of the earth who have carried out his commands. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. Maybe then you will be sheltered in the day of the Lord’s anger. In other words, “Turn from your prideful, boastful ways that you just might be saved.”

Babylon was going to come for Judah. Nothing would stop that. God has promised it, and so it would be, and no amount of solid reforms from upright kings could change the collision course the nation had put itself on. But God still encourages people to be humble before him and others. In fact, God would advise the king of Judah that when Babylon attacked, he should just surrender to him, and things would go much, much better. Of course, the king refused, and so things quickly went from bad to worse both for the king and the people of Judah, and especially those in the capital of Jerusalem.

But is our hubris and puffing up of self a reason to think that God is going send our own versions of Babylon on us? Perhaps. At times, we may need a bump or two in life to bring us back down, to see ourselves as we are, to see our needs.

We have needs far beyond what we’ve mentioned here. Our egos are just one component of our fallen selves. We have a lifetime of rebellion against God, years and decades of acting as if we knew better than our almighty Creator. Not poor in spirit, not gentle, not humble.

Jesus came not just to preach pithy sermons, but to live a gentle, humble life. He came not just to tell us how to live, but to live that life for us. And so, in Jesus, while it’s true we have a great example of how to be humble, how to truly turn the other cheek in the face of abuse, and go the extra mile when we don’t have to, that’s not why he came. He didn’t come to show us how to be humble; he came to be humble for us. He didn’t come to show us how to be perfect; he came to be perfect for us.

In Jesus’ flawless humility, we have the solution for every time we have not been humble. In Jesus’ perfect gentleness, we have the solution for every harsh word we’ve spoken or action we’ve taken. And that’s exactly what we needed because we are not just a few steps off of God’s expectations for us; we are completely fallen and utterly hopeless on our own.

Jesus’ humility is seen in its ultimate form as he humbles himself to an obedient death on the cross. There, the great exchange was made. Jesus’ perfect life is credited to us, and our sins are transferred to him. He pays the price—suffers hell—that we deserved so that we could be free from all of that punishment forever. Our failures to behave as we should, to treat others as God wants, have been forgiven.

And that changes our perspective. No longer do we need to “win” in confrontations with others; no longer do we need to let our ego run wild to try to make a name for ourselves in the world. We already have a name, the best name we could possibly have: we belong to God’s family! Zephaniah describes the result of God’s forgiveness in the short- and eternal-terms in our reading: In that day you will no longer bear the shame of your rebellions against me. Then I will remove the proud boasters from among you, and you will never again be arrogant on my holy hill. But I will leave among you the people who are humble and weak. They will seek refuge in the name of the Lord. The Israelites who remain will no longer act unjustly. They will not lie, and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth. Instead, they will graze peacefully like sheep and lie down. No one will terrify them.

Humility, either by our own choice or by being smacked down by hardship, is rarely seen as valuable. It feels bad and, to the world, looks even worse. We sit on this rock of a planet with hardships and heartaches that will not go away. We suffer in silence or right out in the open. We lose people we love dearly to relationship breakdowns or death. We feel like we have to scrape by just to survive, while others who seemingly have no regard for God or his will are comfortable and seem to be carefree. We suffer for what feels like no reason at all or even because we did the right thing. And all of this can make God seem very distant.

But through the eyes of faith we know that our loving Savior is not distant. As we go through hardships and problems, as we wrestle with the guilt of past sins or worry about future struggles, he is beside us guiding, guarding, and protecting, helping us to navigate this broken world until he calls us home to himself.

And that’s the ultimate promise that God gives to us and that he gave to his humble, faithful believers through Zephaniah’s preaching. Instead, they will graze peacefully like sheep and lie down. No one will terrify them. The Israelites were gearing up for an impossibly difficult time. Most would be removed from their homes; many would never return. But God’s promise here isn’t for earthly peace, but eternal peace. Because in heaven there will be no more sin in us or anywhere else. There will be no more egos run amuck or hardship for the gentle and humble. There will just be peace with our God with no terror or anything bad.

We’ve learned a lot about Jesus during this Epiphany season and here we have our eyes opened to our own reality. This—everything around us—is not the end. In fact, for us who cling to Jesus through God-given faith, this is as bad as life is ever going to be. When he calls us home—and he will—we will have perfect bliss forever.

Until then, we do well to recognize that the path of true, godly humility is difficult. But we don’t walk it alone. We have each other, and most importantly, we have our loving God. Thank you, dear Jesus. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria